the Gospel was taken to them, and is so still in those island where the people have not become christians.

In Africa, Mr. Moffat tells us, when the Bechuanas took their enemies captive, they used to throw the little children on the ground, cover them with brushwood, and set it in a blaze. In India, many little girls are left in the jungle, to be eaten up by the jackals, or to die for want of food. In China, many are drowned in warm water, and buried as soon as born. Numbers are thrown out every night in the streets of Pekin, and buried in the morning in one common hole. Some poor little girls in China have their eyes put out, and are sent to beg. There are two little Chinese girls now in England who were made blind for this purpose.

In the Goom Soor country, in India, a few years ago, hundreds of poor children were found fattening for slaughter! It was the custom to cut pieces of the children's flesh, while they were yet living, and to moisten the land with their blood. The poor ignorant idolaters thought that this would please their gods, and make the land fruitful. Many things just as cruel are still done in other countries.

These are a few of the dreadful customs that prevail in heathen lands. Those who practise

them do not know how wicked they are, for they have had no one to tell them. And think, dear children, what will become of their souls. Millions, millions, hundreds of millions of heathen children are taught to worship idols, and to be as cruel and wicked as their parents. They have no ministers, no teachers, no Bibles, no friends to show them the way to heaven-no one to tell them about Jesus Christ!

A great many meetings were held in London lately, to consider what could be done. Some proposed one plan, some another, but all agreed about this, "We must set the children to work. If more and more letters keep coming from the heathen every year, what shall we do? We are getting old, and cannot work a great many years longer. We must teach our children, that they may carry on the work when we are dead. Some of us did not begin to work till we were grown up, and we have only been able to do a little. We must teach them to work while they are young, that they may be able to do a great deal more than we have done."

"Then," said others, "we will not only teach them what to do when they grow up, but we will show them how they can help us now."

There are two ways in which we shall be thankful for your help. First, we ask you to pray for the heathen.

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In the second place, we ask you to collect money. If you were all to give only one penny of your own, it would amount to several thousand pounds. And if you were all to give a penny-aweek, it would come to so much money that there might be twice as many missionaries, and twice as many schools for the poor heathen children as there now are. Some of you might take cards and collect, and some of you might have a missionary box, and ask your fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, to put in a little money every Monday morning. Your ministers and and teachers can also tell you how you might form little missionary societies among yourselves, and have secretaries, subscribers, and collectors, and even missionary meetings of your own.

Dear children, we want to see you come forward and pledge yourselves to this noble cause. How rejoiced should we be if we could know that all of nine years old and upwards were saying in their hearts, "Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to thee! By thy grace assisting us, we will live to thy glory alone, and seek to make thy Name known and loved throughout the world. If we gain wealth, wisdom, or honour, we will lay it at thy feet, or go at thy bidding to the ends of the earth. From this day forward, we are not our own, but thine !”

A MULATTO FEMALE, in Jamaica, was a person of some little property, and a proprietor of slaves. Of a most overbearing and tyrannical disposition, her conduct towards the unhappy victims of her power was cruel in the extreme. Her house was situated in the country near a public road, and it was proverbial that no one could pass her gate, scarcely at any hour of the day, without hearing the cries and groans of her wretched vassals under the infliction of punishment. Of these none so often felt the effects of her passion as an aged and venerable negress, for praying. A missionary went into the parish, in the hope of securing a piece of land on which to form a preaching station. Disappointed in his expectation, through the influence of a white planter and magistrate, he was returning home, depressed in mind at the apparent hopelessness of further attempts to introduce the Gospel into that benighted district, when he was met on the road by this female, attended by several of her neighbours. She heard of his failure, and after expressing herself in strong language against the leading men of the parish for combining to keep religion out of it, requested him to follow her. They ascended a piece of rising ground a little beyond her cottage, and looking round, her eye kindling with animation, she exclaimed, "They

want to keep religion out of the parish, but, minister, here is an acre of land;

take it, I will give it you; build a chapel upon it; and let them meddle with it if they dare.”* The offer was accepted, and her cheerful consent also given to the occupation of her house or premises for occasional services without delay. These services were accordingly commenced; and for some time, in fine weather, were carried on beneath the shade of a mango tree that spread its wide branches by the side of her cottage. She was denounced and threatened for her conduct by the parish authorities, but with the spirit of a perfect heroine she ridiculed their menaces, and challenged any one to come upon her premises for the purpose either of molesting her or interupting the worship. On one occasion, when the missionary was preaching beneath a tree to a considerable number of the poor slaves, a party of white men rode up to her gate, at the sight of whom the whole congregation were agitated, and were about to fly into the woods; she immediately advanced towards the party, and shouted to them to come in; but before she reached the

* The motive by which this individual was induced to offer the ground to the missionary appears to have been a spirit of opposition to the white inhabitants.

This was the origin of the flourishing mission establishment at Jericho and others in the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale.